5 Ways to Make your Sales People More Successful With Web Conferencing

Sure, I can talk about reducing travel expenses, increasing efficiency, going green… yada, yada, yada. But at the end of the day, the viability of anything succeeding as a business tool comes down to the bottom line. Is it going to save you money? Is it going to make you money? With web conferencing, the answer to both of these questions is YES!

I was asked to write about 5 ways to make your sales people more successful with Web Conferencing. But you know what? I’m not in Sales, let alone Sales Management so I will not pretend to be in this post. Instead, straight out of the realm of common sense – I will show you why it is silly not to adopt web conferencing as a manager in any field of work.

I’m going to make a hunch and assume these benefits can be applied not only to Sales Management, but other fields as well.

1. You can be in two, three, four etc… places at once – Technology has yet to give us the ability to physically exist and breathe in more than one location at once. But, your sales reps can meet virtually with each of their prospective stakeholders at the same time even if those stakeholders are geographically dispersed. In today’s marketplace, not everyone is in the same city let alone same building. There is much debate on the effectiveness of live meetings compared to web-based virtual meetings but when it comes to efficiency, Web Conferencing wins hands down. Why? Because there isn’t a vehicle in the market that goes into autopilot while you work in your rolling office. Some folks are able to talk and type on their mobile device, sift through paper docs and throw down a sandwich simultaneously – but, that’s not so safe my friends.

2. Interactively reach more contacts in less time – Ok, how about 8 prospective meetings a day versus 3 or 4? Eliminate the time it takes to drive from one site to another. Back to back meetings are much easier when you are closing and starting a browser versus jumping on a congested highway to rush to your next appointment. Again, I’m not in sales but I do know about “the law of averages.”

3. Qualify and conduct “needs analysis” prior to meeting with them on site – When comparing a live meeting to a virtual web conference, I’m sure it’s much easier to get off a 20 minute web conference to say “well, that was a waste of time … they don’t need my product.” Imagine if you had driven to that appointment – The drive alone is probably more than 20 minutes. Web Conferencing provides a tool to determine or qualify the prospects that are worth a trip across town (or cross-country) and those which are not.

4. Your people have a solution for managing sales cycles – do your reps drive to a client’s site for each step of the sales cycle, including dropping off collateral to an administrative assistant? Well, I hope that revenue is worth all of the time. Don’t get me wrong. I understand that sometimes face to face meetings are required. If for nothing else, we still need the human element of a good old fashioned hand shake. But if you’re beyond that, get on a web conference to present the offering, distribute collateral (i.e. file transfer), follow up and negotiate the contract.

5. Close business deals more quickly – Like I mentioned earlier, we can talk about cost savings all day long – news flash, gas prices are high right now. But seriously, if you just closed the biggest deal in the last 12 months – are folks really going to scrutinize your gas receipts? Well, maybe they will … Ugg. But isn’t it really just about closing business and generating revenue more quickly and efficiently? Dare I say, “Work smarter?”

Next time you find yourself or a team member getting stuck in traffic, driving through a fast food restaurant or trying to lead a conference call from the office on four wheels, give web conferencing and perhaps this blog post a thought. I’m sure the words will have a bit more meaning during those glamorous moments in time! In the mean time, feel free to post a question below. Or, if you are a sales expert, let me know what I’ve left out here!

_2″ alt=”Dan_2″ src=”http://www.intercall.com/blog/images/legacy/dan_2.jpg” border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px” /> Dan Uhlmeyer is a Sr. Product Manager and the "Web Conferencing" blogger. He has over eight years of product experience in Web Conferencing and currently manages InterCall Web Meeting, InterCall’s proprietary unified communications tool. When not punching on the keyboard, you can find Dan enjoying time with his wife and two children or running a marathon.

One comment on “5 Ways to Make your Sales People More Successful With Web Conferencing”

Being in marketing, I can only respond to this article from the perspective of ‘How can marketing help its main customer?’, which is sales. Holding webinars, web seminars or online lead generation events is one of the best ways. Not only do you reach a ton of people who can be located anywhere in the world for not much money, but you have an opportunity to bring in and qualify leads for your sales team. The best way we’ve found to do that is through an advanced registration tool that lets you collect participant information and has lead scoring, as well as asking questions of your participants during the webseminar.
Bringing in leads this way makes everyone happy – you get great ROI without big budgets and you make the job of your sales team a little bit easier.